Good day. It kind of sounds like the /SOS parameter got added to your boot.ini file. Just in case you are unaware of how to look for this and since you are saying that you are running XP, just right click on My Computer, either on your desktop if it is there on from the Start menu and select properties. On the Advanced tab select the settings on Startup and Recovery section of the Advanced Tab. In there you should find an Edit button under the system startup. Try looking at the end of one of the lines under [Operating Systems] and see if by chance there is a /SOS added to it.
No guarantees, but maybe a possibility. The only thing I can think of that is similar to what you are describing.
You may also want to look for things like /debugport= and/or /comport=. Unless you are doing Kernel Level debugging of something like a driver on your system you probably do not need these.
Under normal circumstances you just have the main entry and then a /fastdetect switch, should look something like:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
I hope this is useful!
Edit: Sorry I missed the sos in your original post, this should definitely get you part of the way back to where you need to be. Thank you again!
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